High thoughts on the confederate flag.
I do not see a problem with people whose family members died fighting for
that flag to be able to wave it high.
As if you need me to tell you that was the Candace Owens podcast, which I'm sure all
of you caught, especially since it was the Christmas podcast, that was yesterday.
She went on to give the reasoning.
Crazy, crazy reasoning for what she just said and
why people should be able to proudly display the fabulous stars and bars.
Here's Candace Owens.
>> It is historical and the idea that your son or daughter went and marched in a war,
and people are just so stupid they think they were fighting for slavery.
Those people who fought were piss poor.
They never had a slave a single day in their life.
They fought for the south and their sons signed up, went to war and
now they're told that even have the flag or having any pride for
their dead relatives is something that is wrong and dirty, and backwards and
racist and associated with slavery.
People are so ignorant about slavery and the numbers on slavery.
I mean the idea that everyone had slaves in the south is so stupid.
It was incredibly uber wealthy people believing that everyone today had a yacht.
I'm just gonna stop ranting about the answer is people should be
allowed to keep their confederate flags and wave them,
because it represents an element of history.
>> It's an extraordinary thing.
I mean I kind of don't know where to begin with with Candace Owens.
It is not at all.
Just let me say that like people who own yachts today, and
the owning of one slave is enough if it was represented by the confederate flag.
To say that because not everybody had slaves,
there was nothing to do with slavery and why the confederacy fought the civil
war is about as wrongheaded in history as you could possibly be.
And then let's talk to, let's listen to what people or
read what people wrote in slave to Mel Bowie of course, who went to UVA.
Speaking of Thomas Jefferson.
According to 1918, 60 cents has taken just before the civil war,
more than 32% of white families and to be confederate states owned slaves,
32% that's not as many people as own yachts.
Of course this is an average in different states have different levels of
slaveholding.
In Arkansas, just 20% of families owned slaves,
in south Carolina it was 46%, in Mississippi, it was 49%.
Let's just take that in Arkansas, only 20% of our Kansans own slaves.
So no big deal.
They go on to say slavery was at the foundation of economic and
social relations, and slave ownership was aspirational a symbol of wealth and
prosperity like a yacht, right?
whites who couldn't afford slaves wanted them in the same way that today,
most Americans want to own a home.
Many whites couldn't imagine some in society without slavery and
when it was threatened, those whites, whether they owned slaves or
not took up arms to defend that way of life,
to say that the civil war as represented by the confederate flag, the confederacy.
If that was not about slavery,
then I mean if you're able to say that was not about slavery, you are a fool,
you are naive, and you're trying to tell people things that are simply not true.
That's why I hope you missed yesterday's Candace Owens podcast.
>> [LAUGH] All right, so a couple of things here.
So right wing does this all the time and I wanna give you guys a heads up about it,
so you can start seeing it for yourself.
They set up strawman or even she's like, it's so
stupid to say that every white person in the south owned a slave.
Who ever said that?
I don't know anybody who's ever said,
every white person in the south owned a slave.
You just made that up so you can say that it was stupid.
And then what it does is it tricks right wingers into thinking, yeah,
you see that the left wing is wrong about this whole issue.
Well, first of all we weren't wrong about anything.
She made up a strongman argument that no one ever says.
And secondly, that has nothing do with the rest of what actually happened.
And even if what she said was true and by the way, I didn't know,
I thought it was a smaller number to be honest with you.
Those numbers that Michael just read us are amazing.
49% of white people in Mississippi owned slaves where their families did?
Wow, that is a much higher percentage than I thought.
>> And the thought that the other 51% of Mississippians were just
somehow opposed to slavery, that's just for those 49.
These are people who were fighting for a way of life.
It was how they made their money, it was how they kept their prices down.
It was how they rented their land, it was how they raised their horses.
Everything having to do with agrarian life in Mississippi was based on slavery and
that is why they fought the civil war.
And so come on, you think that it was only a certain percentage owned slaves.
All of them fought for the idea of having slaves.
Miss Jamal Bowie said there, they also fought for
the aspirational part of owning slaves.
>> And even if what said was true.
Well, does that mean that the war wasn't about slavery?
No, it means that poor white people in the south were used as suckers to go and die,
so that rich white people in the south could own slaves,
that doesn't make it any better, arguably could make it worse.
They were poor white people were also used the cannon fodder by the rich,
which is exactly what republicans wanna do now with poor people.
And then Candace Owens loves use the pores and excuse use them as cannon fodder.
Let's go fight whatever wars we want for the rich.
It's the same story over and over again.
And guys look, we, this is not a Donald Trump thing.
This is not a new right wing media thing.
People in the south and republicans have been saying for
50 years now that the confederacy and the civil war wasn't about slavery,
it is the most absurd, insane conspiracy theory there is.
What was it about then, peach cobbler?
No, of course it was about slavery.
That's not even remotely in dispute.
Just because they yelled so loudly, doesn't make it anywhere near true.
It was 100% about slavery.
And by the way,
the guys who declared civil war against America wrote in the documents,
we are declaring war against America because we would like to keep slavery.
It's not at all in dispute, okay?
So by the way, Candace Owens knows that, but
she gets paid to attack other black people and she gets paid by who?
Rich white folks.
So that's how this game is played.
And, finally like I wanna ask you.
So look, you're Jewish, couldn't she make the same argument,
What these good German soldiers.
They didn't do anything wrong.
And it was their sons and that went and fought in this war for dramatic pride.
And now you just want to take away their swastika flag that they were so proud of,
right?
>> It's, and not everybody hated the Jews in Germany and they fought that war.
Yeah, I mean, it's not an exact analog, but it's certainly similar.
The best argument is the one you just made is,
what was it about if it wasn't about slavery?
Why did they have a civil war if it wasn't about slavery?
They had a civil war because of slavery.
And that's exactly why it went to war.
That's exactly why they fought.
That's why they protected?
It's why reconstruction happened.
That's why they made deals at the end of the civil war that allowed slave states to
in some cases still endure.
If you look at the election of 1876, it was about compromise.
It was all based on slavery and slavery is the root of that and the cause of that.
And upsetting that people just can't admit that.
It's history now, right?
I mean, what is the defense of saying what candace Owens is saying?
Why say, why?
Because they want to persist with this white power act and make people feel
is if there it's okay to hang your flag because of what it represents.
And it doesn't represent slavery because they want votes and
they want to sway a certain political segment.
It's a disgusting for
a woman of African American descent to do that frankly, Candace Owens.
But it's repulsive to the to the sort of core of American education and
belief, and it was the darkest, worst part of American history.
And to excuse it for no reason and also for lies to say,
it's only because of certain percentage say that it's just ridiculous.